His ominous reply: “I will no longer be known by the name Ed, Dr. Van Deusen.”
“Why certainly, Ed,” I agreed. I’d expected it would be so much more difficult to speak, but, here on the threshold of revolution and international instability, I found I was feeling rather energized. There had been an influx of adrenal juices in my compromised system. “Tell me what name to use.” I faced the coast of the Nutmeg State. The lights twinkled against violent seas.
“My name,” Ed said, “is Ernest Piccolo.”
“I’ve heard of you.” I didn’t bring up the Hawkes-Mitchell book, of course.
“The reason we have brought you here,” Ed continued, “is to let you know that there has been another sighting. An aircraft. At the other end of the island. Just two nights ago. An isolated event, according to the NSA, would be considered a transient sighting, in which the hostiles, understanding that the situation was too hot, aborted the mission. A second visit presents much more serious parameters, and the situation, naturally, has now been expressed up the chain of command. We believe, in fact, that we have a Code White. As you are one of our reliable local informants, Dr. Van Deusen, we will require your services.”
“Anything you say, Ed,” I replied, “uh, Ernest.”
“We charge you with looking into aircraft design. We have ideas about the design of this aircraft, and we have managed to locate the registration numbers, which are as follows: DB-81404. We suggest that you begin looking into the FAA databases. We suggest that you pursue the licensing information, the insurance information, anything you can find about this aircraft in particular.”
I was speechless. The brazenness of the perpetrators! Right here in our resort community! To use a nationally registered aircraft, licensed by our own federal licensing authorities.
“Did you make contact with the hostiles?” I asked. “Did they say anything?”
“Contact was made.”
“Were they taken into custody?”
Ernest Piccolo’s surf-casting rod never once ceased from its pendular motion. The lure belly flopped on the surface of the black, storm-addled sea. He reeled it in. I could see now that he also had a pail beside him, and that a pair of snappers, in a gallon of briny water, fought back against their imprisonment. Piccolo was loath to tell me what he had learned. Government values secrecy above all. And yet had I not proved that I was a willing participant in the struggle for our values and for our community? Had I not managed this, if little else, in my seventy-three years? Piccolo deliberated before going on.
“During the course of the field interview with the hostiles, I asked what they were doing, and they said they were taking pictures. I told them it was a private airfield, and they said this was news to them, that they had been training here for takeoffs and landings for years. They mentioned Yankee Airlines of Groton. I told them not to be coming around again, that they should consider themselves warned from the highest levels.”
“Are you able to identify their nationality?”
“They were dark-complected, as has already been reported. Time’s growing short, Dr. Van Deusen. We don’t have the luxury to be going over points that we’ve already covered.”
“Are you certain it was the same men?”
“Rendezvous here this evening with whatever information you locate. We’ll have further assignments for you at that juncture.”
Dawn was breaking again. I lost myself in its consideration, wondering when the hurricane would come, if the evildoers would come, when exactly, and why me, what had I done to merit the burden that had been so precipitously thrust upon me? Piccolo, departing surreptitiously, left behind his pail. And evidently he was practicing catch and release, for the pail was empty.
In order to preserve my own cover, I spent the next hours attempting to harvest clams.
9. Contemporary Aircraft Design
What a welcome coincidence that my wife had elected to go to the mainland. For some time she’d wanted to locate a secretaire for the guest room. Oddly, it became imperative to her that she locate this piece of furniture before the hurricane. Of course, as I have discussed earlier, it is possible that my wife was a hostile agent. It’s possible that she knew the island was now a locus of intrigue. It is possible that she’d been intercepting conversations between myself and Ernest Piccolo, that she knew about the Omega Force and its diabolical intentions, and that, though she loved me, she now realized that she had no choice but to leave me to my uncertain fate.
My wife left on the early boat, trusting that I would not get into any of the locked cabinets in the dining room and that I would agree to return to the self-help meeting, which reconvened in the afternoon. Also, with the aid of our trusty domestic staff, I was to look after Skip. The weather was unseasonably warm and moist, and the sky was bleached white, as if it were the pad on which a momentous story was soon to be written.
I got down to work on the question of the aircraft.
As you know, our airstrip, since it was first created by the military, is sturdy enough to withstand the weight of a full transport plane, with its complement of fighting men. Therefore, as I’ve said, it’s possible that an aircraft as large as a jet could land here. A small jet would be more effective at eluding government capture and could ditch at one of the laboratories on Plum Island, scattering contaminated slurries on the breezes. Or it might collide with the nuclear power plant, likewise broadcasting radioactive materials. Helicopters have also been known to land on our airstrip, as when the most successful of the younger set tries to make it into work on Monday mornings.
These aircraft I have mentioned were theoretically feasible for any assault, and this I told Skip as we breakfasted on sugary cereals. “Skip,” I remarked, “I don’t want you to tell your mother any of what I’m about to tell you.” He nodded solemnly because except on those days when he glimpsed the enormity of his disability, the days when he railed at the world and destroyed household items, he was docile and accepting. He liked secrets, or at least the intimations of secrets. “I’m having trouble thinking all of this through,” I said. “There are just too many variables in my head. But here’s what I suspect. I suspect that the aircraft the hostiles used was not a jet or a helicopter, because it would attract too much attention. We need to think in terms of small single-engine or twin-engine propeller planes. What do you think, Skip? Piper Cub?”
Skip cried out the name of the plane, “Piper Cub!”
Cereal made him energetic.
“What about the Cessna?”
“Piper Cub!”
A single-engine plane can typically fly five hundred to nine hundred miles before refueling. That would greatly increase the number of available targets. Though it did depend, of course, on where the plane was hangared. The great Lindbergh sparked the interest in general aviation of this sort, and it was shortly after his flight, as you no doubt are aware, that William T. Piper purchased the Taylor Aircraft Corporation and received the appropriate licenses to develop its “cub” model. In 1938, the J-3 Piper Cub was introduced, and it became popular immediately. It was the training aircraft of choice in the postwar years. My own father, in fact, “Dutch” Van Deusen, was known to fly one.
“It’s a Cessna 414A,” I called to Skip, having long ago left behind my Lucky Charms. Who knew how many hours passed before this felicitous conclusion? I found, by querying the FAA Web site, that there was in fact a Cessna twin-engine plane with the registration number DB-81404, and that the owner was located in Massachusetts. But that was not all I learned. It was here that the uncanny part of my story caused me to spill a cup of coffee, up in the study, which would annoy Helen no end. I suspect you will have divined the owner of the plane by now, or the registered owner thereof. But I will make manifest my evidence. The registered owner of the aircraft was none other than one S. Hawkes-Mitchell.